Page 215 - For Men of Understanding

emitted by the Sun and other stars back into space before they reach the Earth.
The fact that this property of the atmosphere's layers, that was only demon-
strated in the recent past was announced centuries ago in the Qur'an, once again
confirms that the Qur'an is Allah's word.

THE SUN'S TRAJECTORY

It is stressed in the Qur'an that the Sun and Moon follow specific trajectories:
It is He Who created night and day and the Sun and Moon, each one
swimming in a sphere. (Surat al-Anbiya'': 33)
The word "swim" in the above verse is expressed in Arabic by the word "saba-
ha" and is used to describe the movement of the Sun in space. The word means
that the Sun does not move randomly through space but that it rotates around its
axis and follows a course as it does so. The fact that the Sun is not fixed in posi-
tion but rather follows a specific trajectory is also stated in another verse:
And the Sun runs to its resting place. That is the decree of the Almighty,
the All-Knowing. (Surah Ya Sin: 38)
These facts set out in the Qur'an were only discovered by means of astro-
nomical advances in our own time. According to astronomers' calculations, the
Sun moves along a path known as the Solar Apex in the path of the star Vega at
an incredible speed of 720,000 kmph (447,000 mph). In rough terms, this shows
that the Sun traverses some 17.28 million km (10.74 million miles) a day. As well
as the Sun itself, all the planets and satellites within its gravitational field also trav-
el the same distance.

ATMOSPHERIC LAYERS
One fact about the universe revealed in the verses of the Qur'an is that the
sky is made up of seven layers:
It is He Who created everything on the Earth for you and then directed
His attention up to heaven and arranged it into seven regular heavens.
He has knowledge of all things. (Surat al-Baqara: 29)
Then He turned to heaven when it was smoke. In two days He deter-
mined them as seven heavens and revealed, in every heaven, its own
mandate. (Surah Fussilat:11-12)
The word "heavens," which appears in many verses in the Qur'an, is used to
refer to the sky above the Earth, as well as the entire universe. Given this mean-

ing of the word, it is seen that the Earth's sky, or the atmosphere, is made up of
seven layers.
Today, it is known that the world's atmosphere consists of different layers that
lie on top of each other. (Michael Pidwirny, "Atmospheric Layers," 1996,
http://royal.okanagan.bc.ca/mpidwirn/atmosphereandclimate/atmslayers.html)

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